1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a method, system, and program for retention management and protection of stored objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Organizations may need to retain and archive electronic documents and records in storage for an extended period of time due to internal or external information retention policies. For instance, government regulators may require that certain files remain archived for a minimum period of time. Companies in regulated industries, such as securities and financial organizations, defense contractors, etc., may be required to archive certain documents. Further, government agencies may also be required to archive files. Yet further, organizations subject to an audit or investigation, such as litigation, may also be subject to information retention requirements. A storage system often includes some archival software to manage the archival of files at different locations that are retained according to a policy. Such archival software may maintain a database of archived files.
When an object is archived, a record is added to the archival database, where the record identifies the archived object and a retention policy for the archived object. The retention policy specifies a retention period during which the file is archived. When the retention period expires, the archived file may be removed. With such systems, an administrator or user may inadvertently or intentionally remove an archived object or modify the retention policy for an object in a manner that would violate the current retention policy, which may be imposed as a result of government regulation or organization policy.